The door clanged shut behind them, and the two of them were alone. They looked at each other. "Well," Ruth began, but couldn't go on. She tried to smile at Patrick, and not to release the tears, but they trickled through. They sat down together. Somehow, although they were both afraid, they could draw strength from one another.
"I hope the others are ok," she said after a couple of minutes of silence.
"They've got no reason to hurt them," he replied. He looked at her and smiled, that slightly nervous smile she knew so well. It was a comfort, even here. For some reason, although now there were only two of them in the cell, she wasn't lonely any more.
"When I volunteered to stay, I thought I'd be alone," she said. "But I'm so glad I'm not. I mean, I was prepared for it, and I wish you could have gone too, but...I'm glad you're here." His hand found hers. "You were brave to volunteer."
"I wasn't," he said. "I knew I wouldn't be alone. It took more courage for you to volunteer than me."
She looked at the floor. "I was scared," she said. "But I volunteered because I knew I was the right person to stay. I'm not...well, tied, by things like other people; I haven't got a partner to miss me, or a career or degree course...somehow it seems like I've got less to leave behind. I know it sounds daft, but you know what I mean? No one would miss me if I didn't come back."
He looked at her for a moment and then gave her a hug. "That's not true," he said. "You would be missed."
She shook her head. "Not as much as other people- not like Ernest without Emma, say. Better me than one of them."
"Anyway, why are we talking as if we were never going to see them again? What are we afraid of?" He had said we. So it wasn't just her then.
"I don't know," she replied, "But I am. It's something about the snakes. When I said I'd stay- somehow it felt like I was giving up more than it sounded, as though there was more at stake than just a few days' comfort. I mean...they're keeping Will and Zoe as hostages, in case something goes wrong in some plan to take over Bognor, and to keep them out of the way. But once that's over, if the plan succeeds, they won't be wanted. What'll happen to them? Probably they'll be killed. But we're not important at all. Why should they bother to keep us alive?"
"Well, they have so far," Patrick said.
"But for how long, if things go wrong?"
"Even so, we're in no more danger than the others."
"Maybe they'll be able to escape," she said.
"But they said they wouldn't."
"They said they had no plans to. Ernest's clever with words."
"They wouldn't leave us behind. Ruth, they wouldn't!"
Ruth shrugged. She wasn't so sure, but she didn't argue. They were quiet for a few minutes, in the twilit silence of the cold cell. On the surface of the planet outside it began to rain, and water splashed in through the skylight to collect in a puddle in the middle of the floor. It was a dark day and to Ruth there seemed little to inspire hope.
"What you said just now about being alone, about not being missed...you remembered once we joked about me being Sydney Carton- you know, from A Tale of Two Cities?" Patrick said hesitantly. "Well...when they said that a second person had to stay...I knew that what you said about yourself is mostly true of me, too. I had to volunteer."
"There's no 'had to' about it," she said. "You chose, because you cared about the others, not because you didn't care about yourself. I reckon that makes you braver than me." He shook his head. She smiled, and they hugged once more.
"We'll be ok," he said, trying to cheer up. "We'll get out of this somehow." Ruth looked at him, unconvinced. She wasn't even sure if he believed it himself. Yet he was always optimistic, always looking on the bright side of life- always trying to avoid consequences, even when they were inevitable. It had annoyed her sometimes- she had thought of it as hiding his head in the sand like an ostrich. But at other times she had envied his more relaxed attitude. And now...she couldn't bring herself to destroy his hope. She had little.
It soon seemed as though their fears were going to be realised. Over the following days the guards who brought them food became more and more grim. Hissed conversations in Pserpentese took place outside their door without the prisoners understanding a word. That something was wrong they could tell, but what it was they did not know.
Then, on the third day after the others had been allowed back to the spaceship, Ruth and Patrick heard the door opening. The snake leader, who seemed the only one with much English, looked down at them.
"When you were captured, wasss anything sssaid to you about who wasss paying for you?" he demanded. They shook their heads. "No," Ruth said, "They didn't tell us anything."
The snake hissed. "I begin to wonder if we will ever ressceive the money they promisssed usss," he said. "And if they don't keep their ssside of the bargain, I don't sssee why we
ssshould keep oursss. It cossstsss money to guard and feed you." He spat at the floor, turned and left.
They looked at each other. "Do you think that means they'll let us go?" Patrick said. Ruth shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe." But she didn't think it likely.
The story continues...
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